Freedom Incorporated (78 page)

“
Let her go,”
Dan ordered tersely, menacingly adjusting his aim.

Junior shook his head.
“Put down the gun, then I’ll think about it.”

Dan judged his
chance of getting a bullet into Junior’s head. He was perilously
close to Jen. If his aim were off by less than one tenth of a
degree, he’d kill her instead.
Damn.

“
Let me make
it easier for you, tough guy.” Junior pressed his muzzle even
harder against Jen’s temple. It was going to leave a nasty bruise.
“Put down your gun or I’ll spray her brains over the
floor.”

Jen’s stress hormones
were a hundredfold above potentially lethal doses and her blood
disorder began to react. The capacity for her haemoglobin to carry
oxygen to her brain was dwindling fast and, even without Junior’s
arm, she was choking. She wriggled, ignoring the pain from the cold
steel against her temple, and freed herself enough to speak. It
came in contorted gasps, “Take the shot.”

Dan hesitated.

Junior echoed her, “Yeah,
come on Sutherland. Take the shot if you have the balls. Or aren’t
you good enough?”

If he’d still
been suffering under Zyclone’s protective umbrella, he wouldn’t
have hesitated. He missed the confidence it breathed into him,
especially at times such as these. Now he was wreaked by doubt. He
couldn’t hit Junior and be sure he’d miss Jen. The brute had pulled
her onto her toes and was crouching low to give Dan as little as
possible to shoot at.
No… I
can’t.

Junior saw the defeat on
his face and snapped, “No, I didn’t think so. So put the fucking
gun down.”

Dan was about to comply
when he caught the disappointment in Jen’s eyes. He froze, thought,
and steadied his aim instead.

Jen took strategic
advantage of nausea brought about by oxygen-deprivation and gagged
on a jet of vomit that surged explosively from her mouth. It
sprayed down her front and coated Junior’s trousers, assaulting him
with its pungent acidic odour.

He relaxed his grip and
she twisted to face him for the next convulsion, spraying him in
the face. Junior responded the same as most people would under the
circumstances, instinctively swatting the vomit that clung to his
mouth and nose and made it difficult to breathe. Jen crumpled to
the floor and Dan shot Junior thrice in the head. He fell backward,
away from Jen.

He rushed to her side,
oblivious to the chunky vomit puddling around her. “Jen! Are you
all right?”

She shook her head.
“No.”

An irrepressible song of
euphoria was whistling through Dan’s mind. He couldn’t explain why
any god thought he was worthy of a miracle, but one had bestowed a
miracle on him anyway. It was only then that he noticed Jen’s
breathing was short and sharp, and a frown crossed his
forehead.

“
What’s
happening?”

With Dan’s help, Jen
rolled away from the vomit. “I have…” – she had to gasp for air –
“…a blood disorder… can’t breathe…”

A helpless panic replaced
his euphoria. “What can I do?”

Jen closed her eyes,
trying to control her breath. The onset of haemoglobin-failure was
itself a stressor and contributed to the downward spiral in her
condition.

“
Nothing… just
tell me… I’m safe.” Jen was calming down, but wasn’t yet sure she’d
live. It would get worse before it got better. “Help… me get…
clean.” She didn’t want to die in a puddle of vomit. The urge to be
sick had passed, for which she was thankful, but she could feel the
acid on her skin and didn’t imagine it would be pleasant for
Dan.

He helped her wriggle out
of her shirt and jeans and cleaned the mess from her face.
Afterwards she looked respectable, despite the fact she was lying
there in her underwear. Naked would still have been preferable to
wearing vomit-soaked clothes. Dan removed his coat and wrapped it
around her, seeing appreciation in her eyes.

Then he carried her to
the couch and gently laid her down, brushing the hair from her
forehead. “Shh… it’s okay now. You’re safe. You’re
okay.”

And Jen believed him. It
didn’t even matter what he’d done to make everything okay. People
had died, but in her mind it was justified. It was over and they
were both alive, and that was the important thing as far as Jen was
concerned. She was tired but stubbornly fought the impulse to
sleep. Her dizziness was subsiding and that was a positive sign, it
meant she might live.

The not-so-distant rattle
of gunfire snapped Dan’s head to attention. It was unmistakably the
tinkle of a Cobra-KT, fired on fully automatic.

“
What’s that?”
Jen asked, prising her eyes open and fretting the situation might
not yet be as safe as she’d assumed.

“
Esteban’s
still here,” Dan reluctantly admitted.
Though maybe not anymore… that could’ve been the sound of his
death.

*

Perspiration
beaded unnoticed on Simon’s forehead. He was too distracted to
sponge it away.
She’s
dead.
He checked Mindy’s body again but
still found no pulse. Esteban had killed her with a single
well-aimed shot to the chest.

He brushed her vacant
eyes closed and took the Cobra-KT from her hands, and then resumed
his merciless, angry pursuit of Esteban. The man represented
everything he stood against as a law enforcement
officer.

For his part, Esteban was
backing away. He knew the other Guild members had abandoned him and
their cowardliness turned his stomach. There were only two! Surely
a dozen men could overpower two intruders? He didn’t grasp that the
two intruders were far more motivated than the Guild members would
ever be. Dan was willing to risk his life to free Jen, a sacrifice
no Guild member was willing to make.

He fired a few lazy shots
for cover while dialling the destination code and making his escape
through a portal.

Simon stood from cover
and rotated his shoulders to release the tension. The entire
assault had lasted no more than 15 or 20 minutes but it’d left him
more exhausted then a two-hour ordeal in the gym. He meandered
carefully back to the lounge room, still alert in case there were
more.

He found Dan sitting next
to Jen, who was lying immobile on the couch. She looked pale. His
first thought was that she’d been shot and she was dying. “What
happened?”

Dan was gently stroking
Jen’s forehead and didn’t look up. “Nothing, it’s all okay now.
Frank used her as a human shield, but he’s gone.”

“
So is
Esteban,” Simon said, sounding less than impressed.

“
You got him?”
Dan’s eyes flashed with that alien emotion again.

“
No I mean
he’s
gone
. He
escaped through the portals… but not before killing
Mindy.”

Dan hung his
head and sent a silent prayer to wherever people went after death.
He hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words to her but he’d
sensed she was a decent person.
Take care
of her, Katherine.
Dan thought his wife must
know her way around the afterlife and was therefore the perfect
person to help with Mindy’s transition.
If
an afterlife exists, that is.
The jury was
still out, and would be until the day Dan died.

Now that the danger had
passed, other women started to appear. They tentatively stepped
into the lounge room and eyed the intruders with as much suspicion
as they’d lavished on Guild members. Simon took charge and tried to
reassure them by holstering his weapon and resting the Cobra-KT
next to the couch. He waved them closer. “It’s okay, you’re free
now.”

“
Free?”
Restrained hope twinkled in the speaker’s eyes. She was short,
shorter than the others. The Guild had so thoroughly beaten hope
from her spirit that now it’d returned, it stung her. Tears were
forming in her eyes and she wrapped her arms around her body for
comfort. “We’re free?”

“
You will be
soon,” Jen affirmed from the couch. “We’re all getting out of
here.” She sat up with Dan’s assistance and looked at him askance.
“Any chance you brought microchips?”
Or do
we have to go spine gouging?

“
We might have
to make a couple of trips,” Dan said and handed over the device.
Jen wasted no time cracking the case and handing out the precious
rice-like chips.

One of the women did a
headcount and said, “Someone’s missing.”

“
Mindy?” Simon
asked.

She nodded. “That’s
right. How’d you know that?”

There was no easy way to
say it. “She died.”

They met the news with
grim silence, but also an acceptance that Simon had never before
witnessed. These women had seen enough hardship, violence and death
to grow a thick emotional defence that one more death couldn’t
scratch.

“
Come on,
let’s get out of here,” Simon said, waving them toward the portals.
He was nervous that the Guild members might return better
prepared.
Or maybe Esteban will come back
with…
The thought, unfinished, still sent a
chill down his spine.

“
Wait a
minute,” Dan stopped them. “How will we get back in?”

Jen looked at him in
confusion. “Don’t you have chips with proper access?”

“
Ah, actually…
no.” Dan shook his head.

“
Then how did
you get in to start with?”

“
Long story,”
Dan replied evasively.

“
I don’t want
to do it again.” Simon swallowed hard. “That’s pushing our luck too
far.”

Dan nodded thoughtfully.
“You’re right. You go ahead to the portal while I… find a chip we
can use.”

Simon masked a shudder
and led the procession to what he considered the front of the
compound. The short woman sidled up to him on the way, slipping an
arm around him and pulling herself close. She liked him; it was
obvious. And while Simon found it flattering, he was thoroughly
embarrassed. Before they were halfway to the portals, he was
everyone’s hero and they showered him with attention.

Jen, who’d stayed behind,
looked at Junior’s vomit- and blood-covered corpse. “Is that where
you’re going to…”

“
Yes.” Dan
nodded distastefully. “You can go ahead if you’d like. It’s not
going to be pretty.”

Jen shook her head. “No,
I’d like to stay if that’s all right.”

“
Yeah, that’s
fine.” He didn’t know what else to say. He’d prefer to work alone;
it’d be easier that way. He stripped the clothes from Junior’s
torso and rolled him onto his stomach. Then he gripped the handle
of his Ka-Bar and carefully selected the correct vertebrate.
Parting Junior’s skin felt like peeling a peach. And when his knife
struck bone, it felt as though he was grinding seed. A knife wasn’t
the preferred instrument for removing a segment of a human spine
and it took him five oath-filled minutes to remove the hacked and
blood-smeared bit of bone. “This had better be the right one.” It
was the segment from beneath the tiny scar, but Dan wasn’t a
butcher and didn’t really know what he was looking at.

Jen was watching
expressionlessly from the couch. “I think that’s it.” She didn’t
know either, but it looked about right. The corpse had a messy hole
in its back, the surrounding tissue massacred by Dan’s knife. He
rolled Junior over for no other reason than to hide his untidy
work. Next, he cleaned himself with help from the bar sink and
wrapped the spinal segment in a tea towel.

“
Okay, let’s
go.” He helped Jen to her feet and supported her to the portals.
When they arrived, the first six women to receive microchips had
already gone. Simon keyed the destination and invited Dan to follow
them. He flashed away, collected the chips, and reinserted them
into Jen’s chip selector to mask their signature for the return
trip. Junior’s microchip worked perfectly and he reappeared a
minute later, and they only had to repeat the process once more to
get everyone out of the underground nightmare.

Jen turned to Dan when
the last of the women were gone. “I need to say
something.”

“
Uh, guys…”
Simon interrupted incredulously. “This isn’t the place. Can’t you
wait for another
two
minutes?
”

“
I suppose
so,” Jen said with an uncertain expression. She deeply searched
Dan’s eyes and found understanding there.
Maybe I don’t need to say it at all.
But she intended to anyway, just to make sure.

*

Sunday
, September 1
9
, 2066

9:42
Sydney
,
Australia

The Raven snarled at his
change of luck. He hated the shackle of his omen. It hadn’t come.
Yet. He’d hoped to eliminated Samantha Lee and David Coucke while
Dan was busy. Now he had to contend with all of them again. On the
up side, at least he knew where Jen was. Her absence had begun to
bother him – since he had to get rid of them all to collect his two
million Credits.